Are You a Creationist or an Evolutionist? (See Post For Details)

[Letum]

For every set of facts, there will always be a variety of explanations that fit.

Coming up with an explanation is easy, deciding which explanation is correct is not.

Both biology and religion offer explanations of the origin of species that fit the facts.
there are several tools that can help us decide the correct explanation.

1)
Firstly we should consider which explanation speculates the least about things
beyond the face value of the evidence and makes the fewest claims about the
existence of entities that are not in the evidence

2)
We should also candider how well the explanation coheres with other facts and
explanations that are uncontroversially believed to be true.

3)
A good explanation should allow the creation of testable hypothesis that can be
confirmed or disconfirmed. It should be possible to imagine some hypothetical, yet
somewhat credible, evidence that would disprove the explanation.

4)
Finally the explanation we chose should be comprehensive in leaving as few loose
ends as possible, generating fewer additional questions and leaving the least
unexplained.


Lets use the example of a man found hanging in a sealed room with one door locked
from the inside. The only objects in the room are the man, the rope and hook he has
hanged from and a stool on it's side just below his feet.
Based on these facts, the police come up with two explanations.

Explanation One:
The man entered the room and locked the door. He than stood
on the stool and put his head in the noose and kicked the chair away.

Explanation Two:
The man entered the room and was attacked by a daemon
who killed the man in a way that gave the body the physical appearance of a death
by hanging. The daemon then put the man in to the noose and placed the chair
under him to make it look like a suicide. Finlay the daemon locks the door and walks
away through a wall.

To decide which is the correct explanation we will use the 4 tools above.

Tool 1) Explanation One:
The explanation has no entities that are not shown in the facts.
Tool 1) Explanation Two:
The explanation posits the existence of the daemon entity, which is not shown in the facts.

Tool 2) Explanation One:
The explanation fits with our understanding of human nature and physics.
Tool 2) Explanation Two:
The explanation does not fit with understanding of how physics.

Tool 3) Explanation One:
The explanation could be disproved if the pathologist found that the man did not die
from hanging.
Tool 3) Explanation Two:
There is no hypothetical new evidence that could disprove this explanation as the
explanation can be adjusted to fit any new evidence imaginable.

Tool 4) Explanation One:
The explanation leaves the loose end of why the man killed himself.
Tool 4) Explanation Two:
The explanation leaves the loose ends of what exactly the daemon is, why it killed someone,
how it walks through walls, how it killed the man with no marks, where it came from, (etc. etc. etc.)

[DeepIron]

In response to your post above, we all know just how infallible science is now, don't we? Man looks at God, defines his relationship and expects God to capitulate and accept. Fair enough. But when God approaches Man, the opposite doesn't hold true. God is held at arms length and exposed to Man's logic and reasoning. That is how I read the forward on Science and Creationism. A process through which self-justification and "reasoning" is applied to explain away something outside of modern sciences ability to quantify and qualify.

Now one might indeed accuse me of being biased or close minded. However, I contend that the opposite is just as true for those whom only the disciplines of science, and nothing less, will suffice. They say, "If I can't see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, or hear it, it doesn't exist."

Quote:
The unfortunate aspect of admitting "belief" is that one is immediatly branded as "religious" and communications with that person are filtered through a "religion colored glass." This sad because it automatically presupposes that the "religious" persons mind is closed to thinking "out of the box" and is shut to anything that doesn't fit with their dogma.

You are illogical here. Religion is believing, science is, trial and error, observation and conclsuion. Religion is belief indeed. you have made a choice, you say you belief in an intelligent creator. But you do not want to be hold responsible for the choice you made..?. By your choice, you already have filtered out what is possible in explanation and what not: you must not know anymore, and must not explain accoprding to standards of reason or science or logic - for you have choosen to believe. Believing and reason do not go well together. In fact, they are mutually exclusive.

No, faith is believing. Why do people continually equate religion with faith? I don't "belong" to a religion. I'm not Mormon, Presbyterian, Methodist, or otherwise. I believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the teaching of God through the Bible.

And yes, I'm certainly responsible for the choice I'VE made just as you or anyone else for that matter are responsible for your own choices. And no, just because I've made a committment to follow the teaching of Jesus Christ, doesn't mean I can't entertain or be intelligibly conversant in other ways.

Works for you? I fear you need to wait until you are dead to see if it works for you, or not.

Not really. By choosing to believe my life is fuller and contains fewer worries and more happiness than ever before. Of course, this is relative to me and cannot be empirically or otherwise proven. But in my frame of reference this joy exists regardless.

That way, you can almost skip your life, which may explain christians' obessive orientation towards death.

That's stereotyping. Many of the other believers I know, consider "death" as just another aspect of life, a continuation. "To conquer death, all you have to do is die" to quote Tim Rice, paraphrasing Scripture.

Question then is, in your thinking: why have I been created, then? Just in order to die when asking too many question about poison arrows?

No, quite the opposite. I have a very meaningful and full life. I find confort in the knowledge that God has a plan for me, and it's spelled out very plainly. See John 3:16 for reference.

That must be any god's queer sense of humour - which after all eventually may prove the existence of god in fact, finally (at least when you have made a decision to believe.)

I think God has an even queerer sense of humor as found in atheists and agnostics who contend that their own little universe of "self" is impregnable, completely self-centered, self-supported and logical.

@letum, which of the explainations that you've given for the demise of the hanged man do you believe?

[DeepIron]

So let's kick this up a notch, shall we?

Summing up the Darwinism Hypothesis:
1. Nothing produces everything. (Non-deism.)
2. Non-life produces life. (Self-organization of matter, etc)
3. Randomness produces fine-tuning. (simple luck of the draw chance produced our Universe)
4. Chaos produces information. (no particular order to the Universe)
5. Unconciousness produces conciousness. (the mind just happened as a "side-effect")
6. Non-reason produces reason. (reasoning from chaos)

Ok then. All that Man has evolved to, at this point, is the product of physical processes without the direction of an Intelligent Designer. Purely undirected natural process of evolution. Right? Just a bunch of semi-organized bits of protoplasm walking about our planet with nothing better to do than eat, sleep and cr*p and with no higher purpose or meaning in life. The list above should encompass this. Examine each one and consider it if you would.

It stands to reason then, if we're products of evolution as described by Darwin, and there is no ID involved, that Man is also responsible for his own moral values too. I mean, we don't see the intrusion of Intelligent Design anywhere else so it's reasonable to assume our morals are created by the same processes. After all, intellect, as defined by Darwinism and a byproduct thereof, is a result of randomness and natural selection. One would think that morality would find it's center in the human conciouisness as it certainly didn't start with any of the "lower animals".

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by DeepIron

In response to your post above, we all know just how infallible science is now, don't we? Man looks at God, defines his relationship and expects God to capitulate and accept. Fair enough. But when God approaches Man, the opposite doesn't hold true. God is held at arms length and exposed to Man's logic and reasoning. ...

(...)


opposite. I have a very meaningful and full life. I find confort in the knowledge that God has a plan for me, and it's spelled out very plainly. See John 3:16 for reference.

Mind if I don't? I'm fed up with scriptures. Even more so when I am expected to take it literally .

I think God has an even queerer sense of humor as found in atheists and agnostics who contend that their own little universe of "self" is impregnable, completely self-centered, self-supported and logical.

Well, believing is not knowing, and trust is not blind belief, but grows from empirical experiences of the past. anyhow, I was just unsure were to put you: to the group of reasonable rationalists admitting that there is also a spiritual dimension in existence, or to the group of those who belief something unproven and want to raise it's prestige by labelling it a reasonable method like to be found in sciences. Now that I know about you, i see that it is pointless to continue the communication, for you prefer to just believe and make yourself unavailable for any argument by that - belief beats any argument, any logic, any empirical experience, any reason anytime - while me refuses to see such a position as an equal to reason, logic, empiry, experience - even true spirituality (which has nothing to do with mysticism and literal believing).

Take care,
Sky

[Herr_Pete]

Am all for evoloution. Im not a dan of the creation idea. To unbelievable for me but i respect other people opinion on the matter.